The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen eBook

The captain has since often expressed a dissatisfaction
that he had no share in the honours of that day, which
he emphatically called bear-skin day.
He has also been very desirous of knowing by what art
I destroyed so many thousands, without fatigue or danger
to myself; indeed, he is so ambitious of dividing
the glory with me, that we have actually quarrelled
about it, and we are not now upon speaking terms.
He boldly asserts I had no merit in deceiving the bears,
because I was covered with one of their skins; nay,
he declares there is not, in his opinion, in Europe,
so complete a bear naturally as himself among the
human species.

He is now a noble peer, and I am too well acquainted
with good manners to dispute so delicate a point with
his lordship.

CHAPTER XIV

Our Baron excels Baron Tott beyond all comparison,
yet fails in part of his attempt—­Gets into
disgrace with the Grand Seignior, who orders his head
to be cut off—­Escapes, and gets on board
a vessel, in which he is carried to Venice—­Baron
Tott’s origin, with some account of that great
man’s parents—­Pope Ganganelli’s
amour—­His Holiness fond of shell-fish.

Baron de Tott, in his Memoirs, makes as great a parade
of a single act as many travellers whose whole lives
have been spent in seeing the different parts of the
globe; for my part, if I had been blown from Europe
to Asia from the mouth of a cannon, I should have boasted
less of it afterwards than he has done of only firing
off a Turkish piece of ordnance. What he says
of this wonderful gun, as near as my memory will serve
me, is this:—­“The Turks had placed
below the castle, and near the city, on the banks
of Simois, a celebrated river, an enormous piece of
ordnance cast in brass, which would carry a marble
ball of eleven hundred pounds weight. I was inclined,”
says Tott, “to fire it, but I was willing first
to judge of its effect; the crowd about me trembled
at this proposal, as they asserted it would overthrow
not only the castle, but the city also; at length
their fears in part subsided, and I was permitted
to discharge it. It required not less than three
hundred and thirty pounds’ weight of powder,
and the ball weighed, as before mentioned, eleven
hundredweight. When the engineer brought the priming,
the crowds who were about me retreated back as fast
as they could; nay, it was with the utmost difficulty
I persuaded the Pacha, who came on purpose, there
was no danger: even the engineer who was to discharge
it by my direction was considerably alarmed. I
took my stand on some stone-work behind the cannon,
gave the signal, and felt a shock like that of earthquake!
At the distance of three hundred fathom the ball burst
into three pieces; the fragments crossed the strait,
rebounded on the opposite mountain, and left the surface
of the water all in a foam through the whole breadth
of the channel.”

This, gentlemen, is, as near as I can recollect, Baron
Tott’s account of the largest cannon in the
known world. Now, when I was there not long since,
the anecdote of Tott’s firing this tremendous
piece was mentioned as a proof of that gentleman’s
extraordinary courage.